CHAPTER TWO. How to Not Hurt

“Saintess! Blessings upon the Saintess!”

“Saintess Bellota! Saintess Bellota!”

Immediately after coming down from the tower, Bellota ran straight to the village of Eviden, which had recently been attacked by monsters, with no time to catch her breath, accompanied by priests, covering a distance of 30 miles.

As soon as she entered the village, warm cheers poured out for Bellota. She waved her hand to them, kindly responding to their hopes, and entered the old shelter at the edge of the village, where the victims of the attack had gathered.

The shelter was a scene of despair, filled with the smell of blood, rotting flesh, and the groans of patients. But Bellota, accustomed to such situations, approached them without any surprise.

“Saintess…!”

A patient who recognized Bellota at once tried to get up, but she quickly raised her hand to stop him.

“It’s okay, please lie down.”

Hearing Bellota’s firm words, the patient grumbled and lay back down on the old and narrow bed. Bellota’s gaze turned towards the patient’s left arm, which was badly mangled.

“Should I take a look first?”

Felton, who was standing behind Bellota, discreetly asked. The sight of the decaying flesh around the patient’s arm was terrible, but she shook her head. Without any hesitation, she sat next to the patient and began examining the arm.

“It might hurt a bit. You have to endure it.”

“Ugh, yes. I will endure…!”

Fortunately, the patient had strong willpower. In such cases, treatment was easier. As the patient closed his eyes tightly and turned his head to prepare for the pain, Bellota firmly pressed her palm onto the grotesque flesh without hesitation. When she applied pressure to the wound, the patient convulsed in terrible pain.

“Ugh!”

“Please endure!”

The priests hurriedly held down the patient’s body as it twitched beside them. A bluish-white light seeped from Bellota’s hand that was pressing on the wound. After concentrating on her fingertips with closed eyes for a while, Bellota exhaled as if she had realized something and opened her eyes with a serious expression.

“This is a wound caused by a reknil.”

Bellota continued to press on the wound as she looked around at the priests.

Felton swallowed quietly upon hearing those words. Reknil, reknil. As he fumbled with the name of the monster, he finally recalled the information he had read in the encyclopedia. Reknil was a type of monster, similar in size to two or three adult men with eight legs like a spider. They also had a tendency to gather in swarms.

It was only then that Felton realized why so many people had been attacked in large numbers, yet they could not figure out what kind of monster had attacked them. Reknil was a monster that lived hidden in deep forests and rarely appeared in human territories.

“The fangs and claws of a reknil are poisonous, its sixth leg is especially cursed, so we need to differentiate and treat it carefully.”

The priests surrounding Bellota listened attentively to her words and nodded with tense faces.

“For wounds caused by the sixth leg turning blue and necrotic like this one, we need regeneration healing; for others, we need detoxification healing, is that right?”

When Felton summarized and asked, Bellota nodded and focused on the patient’s wounds again, applying pressure with her hand. The decaying flesh quickly healed and new skin began to cover the area where the necrotic flesh had been.

When the treatment was finally over, the patient, who had been sweating coldly and clenching his teeth, felt weak. Bellota removed her hand and comforted him.

“You endured well.”

“Ugh, thank you, Saintess. Thank you…”

Bellota smiled kindly at the patient who thanked her while crying and then rose from her seat to look at the priests.

“Priest Felton, please send a messenger to the cathedral immediately. Tell them that it was a reknil that attacked Eviden village. It would be good to search the nearby forest where reknils might be hiding.”

“Understood.”

“A reknil will find another target for an attack within a few days because they have tasted human flesh. Preventing that is a priority.”

Felton looked at Bellota with admiration. Bellota was a saintess, bestowed with a level of divine power that made her holy even among other saintess. However, not all saintesses and priests were as knowledgeable about monsters and their injuries as Bellota was. This was purely the result of her relentless efforts. As a priest himself, he couldn’t help but respect this woman.

“I will send a messenger to the cathedral right away.”

Felton nodded respectfully and turned away.

Bellota and the priests divided into areas and began healing, adding more injured people who came after hearing the news. Just one day was not enough, so the dispatched team decided to stay another day in Eviden village. They finished their day’s worth of treatment late in the evening and had their first meal with food brought by the villagers.

Upon hearing that the Saintess had visited the village, the village chief invited all of them to his house, but Bellota declined the offer and decided to stay at the inn closest to the village entrance for a day.

“We need to start treatment early tomorrow morning. Thank you all for your hard work.”

After a tiring day, or rather an exceptionally long and difficult time until last night, Bellota smiled as usual as if nothing had happened. Felton nodded admiringly at this remarkable and respectable woman.

“Saintess, you have also worked hard. Please rest well.”

Each priest nodded with relieved faces and exchanged greetings before dispersing quickly.

Bellota also moved her heavy legs towards her small room on the second floor given to her. Once the old door of the small room closed behind her, the silence she had longed for finally arrived. A quiet sigh escaped her lips as if she wanted to close her eyes immediately.

“Hah…”

As much as she wanted to immediately hop onto the bed, exhausted to the point where she wanted to close her eyes, she instead leaned against the firmly closed door and gazed into the dark emptiness. After spending a restless day without a break, she finally had the opportunity to think about yesterday’s events.

“……”

Her waist, which had been sore as if it would break right after waking up, fortunately, had fully recovered. No, it wasn’t just her waist. After their intimate encounter, Bellota’s body was in top condition. Although she did not show it, she was amazed at how her divine power clearly manifested differently than usual while she was treating patients.

The healing power of the saintess and priests should only be used for the benefit of others. Since their healing powers did not work on themselves, she assumed that this power originated solely from her relationship with Seiden. Bellota wondered if Seiden’s energy was helpful because he was a holy knight, and she found herself repeatedly feeling absurd for having such thoughts.

Bellota closed her eyes tightly. Now that she had a moment to catch her breath, she could think of him. The image of Seiden’s face, the one who had been staring at her all day long, was all she could think of. Bellota felt embarrassed. She felt embarrassed every moment Seiden came to mind, then she felt grateful that he caught her like this, and again she felt confused beyond measure when thinking about the approaching full moon.

When she remembered the despair she felt the moment she pulled down the man’s pants, prepared to have s*x with a death row inmate, she thought this was definitely a good thing. Even more so when she recalled the despair she felt at that moment when she wanted to run away to somewhere. But why did it have to be Seiden…

“……”

Bellota slid down quietly, leaning against the door, watching a ground spider crawling on the floor with a sense of embarrassment.

Bellota was also aware of the rumors surrounding the famous Commander of the Holy Knights. From the primitive nicknames like the ‘Mad Dog of Kanbremes’ Cathedral’ to the deeds that inevitably led to such nicknames. But despite all that, anyone couldn’t deny his unwavering faith in going out to subdue and save the imperial citizens, and also…

Also… Those cold and chilling crimson eyes that occasionally met mine…

“Please use me.”

When he said that, Seiden’s face, looking at me with eyes that seemed to pierce through me, flashed before my eyes.

Bellota knew well why Seiden had made such a proposal. A man with such deep faith would not have allowed the saintess to receive the essence of a condemned criminal through her body. Seiden was a faithful knight who would run to where there were dragons if it was God’s call, even risking his life to fight. Thinking that made her face burn for a moment.

“To think that those filthy bastards’ d*cks are inside of you, I want to stir up the Lethe River in hell and drag them back to this world.”

So, does Seiden, that faithful holy knight, consider me dirty.

Under the moonlight coming in through a narrow window, Bellota reached out to a wriggling ground spider flipping its belly up, and carefully lifted the spider with her thin and slender index finger. A bluish light flashed at her fingertip, causing the spider, which had been writhing as if injured, to immediately straighten up and then disappear at a speed incomparable to moments before.

“…”

With a noble hand, Bellota gathered her resolve as she touched and saved that pitiful little ground spider back to life.

Compared to the suffering of the pitiful people, this was nothing.

When she thought about the people screaming in pain with their limbs torn off and their flesh rotting from the monsters’ attacks, she couldn’t possibly be pessimistic about her own situation. Even now, unable to sleep due to pain, festering wounds, and people crying out in agony, she couldn’t contemplate life and death over such trivial matters.

So, this is nothing.

Bellota repeatedly and tightly closed her eyes her tears were about to well up.

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